Friday, 16 October 2015

630m Crossband Schedule

VO1NA Torbay, Newfoundland

Following up my last blog posting, the weekend of
November 14-15 has now been confirmed for the '630m Special Activity Event' .
There will be further details coming regarding the various experimental
activities and transmissions but the one that holds the most interest for myself
is the 'crossband' operation by several Canadian amateurs.

There are now five
Canadian amateurs slated to operate over the course of the two-night event
(Friday & Saturday) and they will be looking for two-way crossband contacts
with amateurs in the U.S. and Canada. Here is the schedule of frequencies and
times:

These stations will be calling CQ on CW at regular intervals
throughout the evening, and listening for answers on the allocated HF call-back
(QSX) frequency. The sequence that I will be using (and others in a similar
fashion) is:

"CQ CQ CQ de VE7SL VE7SL VE7SL QSX 3566 and 7066kHz K".
After listening for callers on either QSX frequency for approximately 30
seconds, the CQ will be repeated if no callers are heard.

With good conditions, propagation can
often span the continent, so please consider taking part in the activity from
wherever you might be located in North America. Last year, crossband contacts
were made between here and W3 / W5 and many points in between.

For
eastern stations, VO1NA, in Newfoundland, should be a tantalizing target with
coverage throughout the eastern states while the four VE7 stations should prove
workable for central and western North American amateurs.

Those that
might wonder about the 'legality' of crossband contacts need not worry. Canadian
amateurs have had legal access to 630m for almost two years now and crossband
contacts with any stations in the amateur radio service are the same as a
two-way QSO on any other band. Unfortunately, amateurs are not allowed to
contact any of the experimentally-licenced stations ... they are permitted to work
each other only.

Hopefully you will print out the operating schedule and
consider participating in the November crossband activity weekend ... the more
the merrier! It would be great to see even more contacts than last year, which
was a great start, considering the less than optimum conditions. I will post
more details as the event weekend draws closer. We hope to see you there!